Meanings
alternative vulgar I shit you not · alternative vulgar I fuck you not
- colloquialUsed to insist that one is telling the truth.
...I leaf through the stack of magazines they've got, and one of them — I kid you not — one of them is a Naughty Nurses magazine.
2011, Jonathan Marc Sherman, Knickerbocker, page 25
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
Earliest known use is from November 3, 1943 on The Centenary Conglomerate. A print reference of the phrase appeared in 1948 in the International Stereotypers' and Electrotypers' Union Journal, Volume 43: Boy!, Oh Boy! I said I asked for a headache when I volunteered for this job, and I kid you not when I repeat it. It next appeared as a phrase spoken by Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg in Herman Wouk's 1951 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Caine Mutiny": That's the Navy for you. Pass the buck and get a receipt. Act at discretion, hey? Well that's exactly what I'm going to do, and I kid you not. It was later popularized by Jack Paar, host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962, who used this as his signature phrase. It humorously combines the colloquial verb kid with the archaic negation through not without do-support. Compare believe you me.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Finnish en(kä) narraa, en(kä) petkuta
- en(kä) narraaTranslations
- en(kä) petkutaTranslations
- en(kä) puijaaTranslations
- en(kä) juksaaTranslations
French ce n'est pas une blague
- ce n'est pas une blagueTranslations
German ich schwör's dir, kein Scheiß
- ich schwör's dirTranslations
- kein ScheißTranslations
Polish nie żartuję
- nie żartujęTranslations
Spanish no bromeo, no es broma
- no bromeoTranslations
- no es bromaTranslations
Cite this entry
I kid you not. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/I%20kid%20you%20not
“I kid you not.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/I%20kid%20you%20not. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “I kid you not,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/I%20kid%20you%20not.
Source: I kid you not on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.